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Cigarette Tax Arrives Amid Grumbling and Vows

Fear of a dreaded disease has been part of the bargain for years. Shame came slower, as smokers were cast from offices, restaurants and even bars. Now, in New York City, there is yet another scary side effect to smoking: empty pockets.

As a new $1.25 state tax took effect on Tuesday, making the combined tax in New York City the nation’s highest and pushing the price of a pack of cigarettes above $8 in most places, many smokers around the city swore they were stopping, even as they bought what they promised would be their last pack.

Barbette Gaines, 47, who started smoking when she was 12, said she was in a bad mood after paying $8.90 for Newports at a deli on the Lower East Side, and was considering calling a cessation hotline.

Violeta Mujovic, a clerk at the Always Love Discount Smoke Shop on the Upper West Side — which advertises “cigarettes sold at the lowest price in NYC” — said that about two dozen customers complained as they forked over $8.15 a pack on Tuesday morning, but two people stormed out empty-handed.

“They said they were quitting and just left,” said Ms. Mujovic, 23, who smokes a pack a day herself and said she had called the city’s 311 line to sign up for a program that provides quitters with free nicotine gum. “It is just too ridiculous.”

Cigarette prices in the city have been going up steadily in recent years, and taxes now total $4.25 a pack: $2.75 for the state and $1.50 in city taxes that began in 2002.

At a news conference to announce the new tax Tuesday, city and state health officials cited studies showing that smoking rates decrease as cigarette prices rise, and said they expected that up to 140,000 of the city’s 1 million smokers would quit because of the increased cost.

They said that the state expected to raise $265 million in new revenue from the tax, but that the revenue was dwarfed by the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses in the state, which they estimated at about $8.2 billion a year.

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Shahid Akhter, in the Amazing Store and Smoke Shop on the Upper West Side, said, I am very unhappy about this, boss.Credit
Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times

“At a pack a day, smoking is now a $3,000-a-year habit in New York City,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city’s health commissioner, said at the news conference at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. “Quitting now will not only improve your health, but it will save you money you can use for yourself or your family.”

The immediate reaction from smokers across the city ranged from resignation to outrage. Outside the Rosebank Tavern on Staten Island, Mike Sheehy, 49, saw the $8.75 he just paid at a nearby deli for a pack of Marlboro Lights as an affront to his liberty.

“The Revolution was backed by tobacco,” he said, cigarette in hand. “That’s where we got our dough from during the Revolutionary War. That’s the crop that built America. We’re true Americans.”

In Downtown Brooklyn, Oleg Gulchinsky, a 67-year-old immigrant from Ukraine with an open pack of Misty 100s in his breast pocket, said, “Time to stop smoke and begin drink vodka.”

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There undoubtedly are some places where a pack already tops $10. Random sampling showed a range of prices around the city: a newsstand on the corner of Christopher Street and Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village had Marlboro Lights for $9, while the Big J Deli in Woodside, Queens, was selling them for $6.75 (a clerk said he was not aware of when the taxes took effect). The large drug stores were in the middle of the range, with Marlboro Lights costing $8.51 at a CVS in Midtown.

Shahid Akhter, who opened the Amazing Store and Smoke Shop on Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side a month ago, said that past increases caused business to drop slightly, but that crossing the $8 threshold — especially as the cost of everything from oil to eggs continued to rise — was likely to have a bigger effect.

“I am very unhappy about this, boss,” he said. “People come in and say they are going to import them or get them in the Bronx from people selling them out of the back of their cars.”

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Violeta Mujovic, a clerk at another West Side shop, said two customers said they were quitting and just left.Credit
Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times

He said he made roughly half his profit from cigarettes. Looking at the magazines on his rack, he joked that maybe he would have to sell more pornography to make up the difference.

Dr. Richard F. Daines, the state health commissioner, acknowledged at the news conference that many people might seek to evade the taxes by buying their cigarettes online or bringing them in from other states, but he said he still expected the price increase to reduce smoking significantly.

One smoker, Ian Edery, 20, said he would figure out a way to fit cigarettes into his budget.

“I ordered a carton at school over the Internet,” he said, sitting on a bench while smoking in a Greenwich Village park. “It came from Ukraine. The warning was in Cyrillic or something.”

He thought twice about what might have gone into those cigarettes and said he probably would not be making Ukraine his usual place for smokes.

“But I enjoy smoking,” he said. “After college I will try and cut down.”

The Prices Are Higher, but They Vary

With the $1.25 increase in state taxes that took effect Tuesday, New York City now has the most heavily taxed cigarettes in the nation. The price of each pack includes $4.25 in taxes, $2.75 of which goes to the state, $1.50 to City Hall. Here is a sampling of prices Tuesday for a pack of Marlboro Lights:

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$9 at the newsstand at Christopher Street and Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village.

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$8.75 at the Close to Home Deli and Grocery, Bay Street and St John’s Avenue, Staten Island.